The weapons seized on the ship included some 3,000 rockets of various types, as well as 60-millimeter mortars, 7.62-rifle Kalashnikov-ammunition, F-1 grenades and 122-millimeter Katyusha rockets. The ship's cache was reportedly ten times the size that of the Karine A's that Israel seized in 2002.
Containers aboard the ship were owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines Group. The ship's crew was unaware of the weapons on board, as the armaments were disguised as humanitarian aid and hidden behind sacks of polyethylene.
Reports from Israel said the shipment left the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas 10 days ago and was transferred to the Francop in the Egyptian port of Damietta. It was scheduled to dock in Cyprus before heading to the Syrian port of Latakia. Israeli officials said they believed the weapons would have then been transferred to Hezbollah by land.
Senior navy officers say the shipment - destined for the Syrian port of Latakia - contained enough armaments to last Hezbollah for a month of fighting against Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/...
Israel has invited foreign diplomats to view the booty from a ship seized by Israeli commandos in a daring raid Wednesday near Cyprus. Officials say hundreds of tons of Iranian arms, including rockets, missiles, mortars, grenades and anti-tank weapons, were headed to the Islamic guerrilla group Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah denies the charge.
Israel has not provided proof of the Hezbollah link, but it displayed containers from the boat that had Iranian shipping codes in English. The military says it also found an Iranian document showing the shipment originated in Iran. The captured ship was flying an Antiguan flag.
http://www.voanews.com/...
Hundreds of crates — some opened to reveal rockets, mortar shells and boxes of grenades and bullets — lined the dock in Israel's port of Ashdod hours after the operation in the Mediterranean Sea near Cyprus. By evening, Israeli forces were still unloading the 40 containers reported found aboard the Antigua-flagged vessel Francop, which remained under guard in the port.
The weapons, including hundreds of Katyusha rockets, were concealed beneath civilian goods and enclosed in a plastic material capable of fooling electronic scanners, Israeli officials said
The Katyusha was the main weapon used against Israel by Hezbollah in a monthlong war in 2006.
Captured containers on display in the port bore Iranian shipping codes in English: IRISL on one side, I.R. Iranian Shipping Lines Group on the other.
Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman, said a cargo certificate gave the containers' origin as the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/...
This is funny. Speaking in Tehran, Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Muallim, flat out denied the ship was carrying arms. This despite the fact they've been documented by news outlets, video crews and news photographers aplenty.
Muallim confirmed the Israeli navy had seized a ship with Syrian cargo but denied it was carrying arms. It was not clear how this squared with pictures of the cargo broadcast around the world.
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Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, said: "Those who needed further proof that Iran is continuing to supply weapons to terror organisations got it today in a clear and unequivocal manner." Foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel have been invited to inspect the weapons.
The seizure, apparently based on prior intelligence, was said to be the largest in Israel's history, 10 times more than was found on the Palestinian arms ship Karine A in 2002.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
More comedy, this time from the UN's ban Moon. Two days before an Iranian smuggling operation is busted, with hundreds of tonnes of weapons, the UN declares that there is no evidence of Arms smuggling to Lebanon.
Two days before Israel's capture of a ship that was apparently ferrying arms to Hezbollah, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a report to the UN Security Council in which he said the United Nations took the Israeli allegations about weapons smuggling to Hezbollah seriously, but lacked the ability to independently verify the information.
A key clause in UN Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War, prohibits the delivery of weapons to any entity in Lebanon but the Lebanese government. The clause was meant to keep Hezbollah from rearming itself with long-range rockets. However, Israel says Hezbollah has doubled its rocket arsenal since the war, with the help of shipments from Iran and Syria.
Ban urged Syria, Iran and other countries in contact with Hezbollah to uphold the arms embargo imposed after the Second Lebanon War.
http://www.haaretz.com/...
And it's those rockets that illegally target Israeli civilians.
Here's some raw video. It shows the initial uncovering of the weapons , the ship docking and then being unloaded.
"This is a war crime that the General Assembly that is meeting today should investigate and discuss. It is a war crime that the U.N. Security Council should have a special meeting over," Netanyahu told reporters in Tel Aviv.
"It explicitly violates U.N. Security Council decisions," Netanyahu added. "It is a war crime that we know the Iranian regime intended for the Hezbollah to carry out after they already fired thousands of rockets at our communities. This is what the international community should focus on especially today."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
swish